You just mentioned crystallization, which is an example of a process that "falls upwards" as evolution does, generating complexity. So in fact, evolution does not behave contrary to the entire rest of the universe.
I did clearly not deny that short and local, simple islands of patterns emerge from the chaos of entropy every now and then. I am pointing out to you that these are completely different from the kind of order and stability exhibited by life.
As a side node, a 14th/15th century or so Islamic philosopher whose name I keep forgetting once put minerals in a row before plants, animals and humans in an early version of evolution theory.
Or in your case, that a "crystal force" from outside the universe causes it to happen.
My English IS bad apparently.
Clearly, a "crystal force" from inside the universe itself causes the snowflakes to happen, a superposition of well-studied and generally understood molecular forces.
Similarly, I claim a "life force" from inside the universe itself causes life to happen, and that this force has not been recognized yet.
My point was that the fact that humans have recreated something doesn't mean it cannot happen naturally.
In other words, you were attacking a strawman.
Natural selection isn't chaos and static noise. It is anything but a random process.
...emanating from chaos and static noise. That is why I say a form of energy is required to exert that force all the way out of the entropy around it.
To my knowledge there is nothing about humans or any other living organisms that's inconsistent with having been produced purely by natural selection. There are for example many mistakes evolution made in our bodies that an intelligence would not have.
If you do not propose an intelligent designer but only that evolution is some sort of supernatural force, if it makes such mistakes, how would products of it differ in any discernible way from products of evolution as a purely natural process?
I might tell you when crystals start procreating, metabolizing, getting up, looking around them and asking the question "why am I here?"
I don't disagree with that. I only postulate that the original rule set might be the result of something different than a meaningless coincidence.
Sure, anything might be true. But what indications of this have you seen?
Our ability to ask and discuss question such as these. Our love for beauty. They are maybe just a biochemical, neurological trick our DNA devised to keep the procreation process going for a materialist. For me, they are an indication that the original rule set is the result of purpose and intent.
It's also not really accurate to call it a meaningless coincidence. Natural selection has a specific and meaningful "goal", in that it favors those species better able to survive long enough to reproduce and rear their young in whatever the current environmental conditions are.
That sounds pretty eschatalogical. How can the mindless, cartesian, deterministic process of evolution have more of a "goal" or a "meaning" than the process of burning have the "goal" to burn the wood log and turn it to heat and ashes if you deny the very existence of an intent and purpose, i.e., some form of "supernaturality" behind it?
Instead of just assuming that about me because it pleases you, show me some evidence.
I did. I named life itself.
How does the immaterial soul interact with our material brain/body in such a way as to control it, if the material and immaterial do not interact?
Your premise is a dualistic one, mine is, I think, monistic, so I cannot answer the question within that framework. But think of it this way: how does "immaterial" electromagnetic radiation interact with my "material" loudspeakers when I turn on the radio? Frank J. Tipler proposes an interesting mechanism, where the "material" parts of the mind serve as antennas and amplifiers for the "background noise" of the universe. A purely rational and deterministic donkey would starve from death facing two equally big and tasty stacks of hay trying to make the best decision. A donkey that can tap into such a source of randomness picks any, eats and lives.
When we started out, you appeared pretty convinced that remote viewing is real. Not that you don't know whether it is.
The way I remember it, I said "it seems 'remote viewing' has some empiricism behind it. Also looking forward to the outcome of Lucien Hardy's take on the Bell experiment (whatever the outcome)."
Do I just need to wait until I myself am abducted by aliens, or encounter Bigfoot in the woods?
Not that I wish you are. But you'd surely understand better why I advocate a more Socratic approach to claims of "supernaturality".
What you said is "Because more than once in the history of human's quest for knowledge and enlightenment, the majority has been proven to be wrong", which is along the same lines as "there have been visionary geniuses who were right, but mocked in their own time".
..and still vastly different from the strawman you beat up when you said "What I meant when I said that they laughed at Columbus, but also Bozo, is that the fact that certain historical luminaries were mocked in their day does not mean every guy with an unpopular idea is an uncelebrated genius destined to be recognized as such by future generations."
Once again, the fact that some of those people turned out to be right doesn't have any bearing on the stuff you personally believe in
I haven't said much about the stuff I personally believe in (in this discussion, but I invite you to a blog post I wrote long ago). And yes, it does have bearing. "Foresight is better than hindsight", as they say in my language, so I am careful not to take the laughter as a reliable indicator for what is pure crackpottery and what might lead the way to a better world. I once did, joined the laughter and had to apologize. Stupid feeling. So I do it differently now. I withhold judgement, entertain the thought without necessarily accepting it and let experiment and experience be the judges.
Piltdown man was not perpetrated by scientists,
No true scotsman?
and alchemy is not the same thing as chemistry. It is no more a part of the history of science than astrology is.
It is hard to imagine modern chemistry and physics without alchemy.
dinosaur museums are full of skeletons made entirely of plastic, imaginations allegedly extrapolated from tiniest bone fragments invisible to the public
I'd like to see which one you mean.
Actually, the challenge works the other way round. It's not easy to find that many that are not :)
(see also)
I'll bet good money that they have legitimate reasons for that which you and I don't know about.
As I said, I'm not a gambling man, but it seems there are simply not that many real fossils so they fill their museums with plastic replicas and robotosaurs to have something to show.
I think nuclear power is a pretty obvious beneficial product of particle physics,
I think it's not that beneficial to produce tons of toxic waste nobody knows what to do with and then bury it in the hopes nobody accidentally digs it out within the next 50,000-500,000 years or so when there are cleaner, safer, and more sustainable alternatives. I'm not convinced. Note how I didn't even mention the words "Chernobyl" or "Fukushima" in my counterargument.
and the point of space exploration has always been to safeguard humanity against possible extinction events.
...that occur how often?
Wololo, wololo. Ayoyoyo, ayoyoyo, wololo!
If this is some meme, enlighten me.
You have some funny ideas about what science is and how it works.
Maybe. Firstly, I think science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. And secondly, I think that if it disagrees with experiment, it doesn't matter who you are, how smart you are or what your name is, it's wrong, for experiment is the key to science.
I borrowed both from Richard Feynman, though.
You seem to view it the way you do because it has implications you dislike, and you wish to make room for a class of phenomena you find compelling which science can find no evidence for.
Actually, it's more like this... I think that it would be a mistake to take the current state of knowledge, the "scientific consensus" or the "laughter of the majority" as the last word and keep an open mind for possibilities that look as much as crackpottery now as the Wright's endeavours did before they took off. I also think that, according to Goedel's incompleteness theorem, science, as a system, cannot prove its own validity, except if it's incomplete. So you could say I see science not as a monolithic entity where truths are carved into for all eternity, but as a continuous, ongoing process of trial and error, of being "less wrong" with every step taken, and I am looking forward to the ways it'll take us unto. I personally get the impression that, as you carefully agree, such ideas as peace, health, abundance, prosperity and justice should and could be considered to be within its wheelhouse and assist all attempts at getting lot closer to these goals.
Only then will it make any sense, in my mind, to continue the costly pursuit for "god particles" (yes I know, it's a pop science term coined by the press) and life on other stars and similar speculations without any useful application for 99.99% of humans.